or pleasant. To escape dying of the small-pox is salutary; to escape being made a fright of, is pleasant;-why then is one use of cow's flesh less dignified than the other? But the instance is invaluable, as a specimen of reasoning. There is no use in quarrelling with it; the wisdom of our ancestors must have its advocates, as well as every thing else. But could not the author of the sermon have introduced a word for witches? He must have known of many, among the old women in his neighbourhood. A quotation from Hebrew writ might have been found to bear upon the point, with quite as much of application as the passage selected for his text. Judge Hale too, the witchfinder, would have been exceedingly à propos to the previous subject. The community of old women have cause of quarrel with the author, for neglecting so favourable an opportunity of serving the interests of his clients. On the whole, the best way of expressing an opinion of the discreditable performance thus in mockery edited in the form of a sermon, will be by recommending the friends of religious freedom, and those most interested in the present question in particular, to circulate it in all directions; and if it encourages the author to sermonize again, it will be so much the better for the general cause. The minister whose melancholy duty it is to act as a drag-chain upon the progress of liberal ideas, and fight the dreary battles of a decayed and decaying cause, wanted only the misfortune of such a coalition. How strong must be the power of ambition, how delightful its gratification, which can carry men through so many exertions. from which ordinary minds turn with apprehension or disgust! It is agreeable to pass over to the other side of the case. When men are to be persecuted, it is desirable that they should be feeble, that they should be unable to speak for themselves, that they should have no means of calling on others for assistance, that they should be, in short, as nearly as possible in the situation of those whom the author of the Register declares himself to have been in the habit of selecting to pelt. And by parity of reasoning, it is undesirable that they should be rich and well informed, and as able as other people to ask why the pelters should not be put into the stocks. It is very difficult to maintain the persecution of men who can write for themselves as ably as the author of the "Letters." It would be much safer attacking the little withered old gentleman from Aleppo, who brushes his rhubarb with his beard in the neighbourhood of the Mansion House. And yet this little old gentleman has the spirit of a gentleman; for it is but a few days since he was spoken to in his native language, and when money was given him as compensation for detaining him, he drew from his box a modicum of purgation, and put it into the speaker's hand with Oriental grace, saying " Karrim" which being interpreted is "Do me the favour," as being unwilling to be outdone in an expression of good will. Why should the poor old man be pelted by the author of the Register? Or if it is to be so merely because the author of the Register does not like him,-why should not all who happen to dislike the author's speculations upon German dragoons, or any thing else, pelt him? It is happier for none than for the author, that the world at large has got beyond Register law, and Fleet Street divinity. One point elucidated in these "Letters" is too curious to be omitted; as an instance of the folly to which bigotry will stoop, and the nonsense which is good enough to be uttered when somebody is to be oppressed. A statement was advanced by the member for Oxford, that some Jew, residing in this country, supplied Napoleon Buonaparte with a considerable sum of money during the late war. On this the author of the Letters comes to the following conclusion. 'After taking some trouble to enquire into the grounds of the Hon. Baronet's assertion, I have arrived at the conclusion that it must be founded on the case of Mr. Alexander Lindo, a French Jew, resident in Jamaica, who took bills of exchange, drawn upon the French treasury, of General Le Clair, to the amount of £200,000, during the peace of Amiens. This sum was recovered after the recommence ment of the war; and I have no doubt the Hon. Baronet will acknowledge whether this be or not the circumstance to which he alluded.' The only other of the inanities uttered by the opponents of the Jews on which it seems necessary to remark, is the hope expressed in some quarter, that the question would be set at rest. Was such a question ever set at rest?-except in one way. And is it conceivable that it really occurred to the mind of any individual, that the contest was for any thing but time; or the effort was any thing but that of a virtually beaten party, to put off the period of submission to a future hour? Some stress, too, appears to have been laid on the assertion, that all the members of the disabled sects are not strenuous in their demands. Attempts were made to lay upon the table of the House of Commons, one Jew who was willing to take half. But in this there would have been nothing wonderful, even if it had succeeded. In the case of any oppression upon classes of men, there are always some individuals in these very classes, who contrive to make a good thing for themselves out of the oppression. The leading teachers, for example, in the case of a religious sect, are always exposed to the suggestion, that their individual importance depends upon the maintenance of the separation. And though this may not always go the length of bringing them into active opposition, it always forms a counterpoise to a certain extent. Sometimes also, where the habits of the separated party have been long formed to their circumstances, certain conveniences may arise, which in their actual state of feeling will go far to balance their dislike to the exclusions. The quakers for instance, may feel it very comfortable in many cases to be sheltered behind their inability to swear. But here the question occurs, of why the rest of the community should be subjected to the counter inconvenience proceeding from their exemption. Why, for instance, should not the difficulty be got over, by removing the noxious and truth-destroying practice of oath-taking, and at once securing the religious sanction where it exists, and the worldly one whether it exists or not, by attaching the present penalties of perjury, to an engagement by the speaker to speak the truth, the whole truth &c., "as he shall now and hereafter answer for the same.' So small is the practical difficulty arising from the differences among sects, that it would be hazarding very little to say, that a committee of thoroughly. honest men might in a week lay down such arrangements, as should make the Episcopalian lie down with the lambs of the flock of Joanna Southcote, and the Quaker unite with the. Jumper, if not in jumping, in performing all the offices that can with propriety be required by law of an active citizen. ART. XV.-1. Rhymes on Art; or, the Remonstrance of a Painter. 3.-A Letter to the President and Directors of the British Institution ; containing the outline of a Plan for the encouragement of Historical Painting. By Martin Archer Shee. 1809. THE election of Mr. Shee to be President of the Academy has led the world to some inquiries as to the basis on which his reputation rests. It is nearly five and twenty years since the works at the head of this article were published; they may therefore plead usage, and claim to be exempt from criticism; but the changed position of their author fairly brings them again before the world, and gives them an interest which they had not tolerance; like a sturdy beggar it first thrusts its imbecility into the face of the public to awaken compassion, but if you do not give, uses its crutch as a means of extortion; kind and courteous are changed into ignorant and illiberal, we are abused as a people that have no "sensibility to the impressions of taste;" "Goths," the great majority of whom "are not sufficiently refined to feel the beauty of art;" the best of us, with few exceptions, having neither "real taste nor sensibility;" then why appeal to us? but even those who delight in art and have expended vast sums in obtaining what is most excellent in it, are treated with scorn and ridicule, as affecting what they do not feel, and the proof is, that they buy old pictures, instead of modern ones, and think Raffaele greater than a Royal Academician, "as more eclat was to be obtained, by collecting the pictures of other times and other countries, than by patronizing the painters of our own, the vanity of taste triumphed over the virtue of patriotism ;"-why, be it so, old pictures are better than old china; better than hounds, or hunting, or horseracing, or gambling; there was improvement here; to feel, or affect to feel, for art, was something; the mere vain pretension to such taste pre-supposes an increased reverence and respect for art somewhere; but Mr. Shee should learn, that the formation of such galleries is not evidence of a pretence at all, but of real deep feeling for art; the popular painters of the day may prodigies among the idlers and talkers on art; the academicians may be great men among the students; but, without reference to who or what they really are, it is not very presumptuous to say they are not equal to all the talent of all preceding ages, which in such collections is assembled together. When we look on Lord Stafford's Titians we have an assurance of their excellence, the testimony of ages, that we cannot have of any modern picture; and if we are to judge of motives by acts and consequences, such collections are made in the very spirit and soul of patriotism, and the establishment of such galleries, with the liberal and just use that is permitted of them to students and to the public, have done more to awaken men's minds, to direct their judgments, to benefit art, than all the pictures of all the academicians since the foundation of the Academy. There are, however, exceptions in this sweeping censure; a few considerate, reverend and respected old gentlemen have been, it appears "appointed by Taste as guardians to the minority of genius, to cherish infant merit to maturity, and foster feebleness to strength;" and these are the real patrons of art! After this, who can object to be registered among "the Goths;" we have no notion of this dry-nursing of genius; to be cherish" infant merit," we might subscribe a few coppers and go on self-satisfied and comfortable; but we laugh outright when we are asked to "foster feebleness." It is in these vague generalities, these figures, and jingle of words that the question about patronage is always discussed; it is held to be the sure sign of barbarism, to reason upon a question that is much easier, and much more eloquently settled with a little declamation. If you ridicule their idea of this noble game of hustlecap, this flinging about the public money, that it may be scrambled for by R. A's, and the meritorious infants, the A. R. A.'s, if you resist these eleemosynary claims for art, if you treat the idea of patronage with scorn, they cease to petition for art, and rest on the claims of the artist; they put it to you as a question of humanity, and wind up the discussion with a round assertion, which few men dare contradict in the intercourses of private life, that the artist must live, and cannot live without patronage. Critics are allowed to be strong hearted, and therefore, it will not startle people, if we avow at once, to clear away any obstruction from the future argument, that this necessity is not made out; as men they must, and the argument is answered by the fact, that they do, live; but while there are so many ingenious handicraft trades, the necessity of their living as artists is not so obvious, it would be infinitely better for themselves, and for others that they should not; the assumption we have met at once openly and honestly, for it is a powerful and Protean weapon, with which our adversaries contrive to cut and thrust, and commit all varieties of offences; it is the sure apology for all that needs one; and, though only applicable to paupers and poor-rates, it is made by men who keep horses, and carriages and livery servants, and in an age when artists die worth a hundred thousand pounds; it is the conclusive reason and we here allow its force, why Sir Thomas Lawrence painted portraits and Chantry chiseled busts; but it is no apology for the one painting nothing but portraits, and the other leaving hist Satan untouched, notwithstanding the commission. But not to go the length of asserting that modern art is a base, servile, huckstering, trading affair, because there are many highspirited men among artists, and it is not right to think so ill of any as to take their own report of themselves; artists have some apology for their idle talk on this subject, in the idle talk of others; but Mr. Shee is not to be admired, who enters with a grand flourish of trumpets, and the assurance that the most distinguished members of the profession would be content to live poor, if they could but live respected. This is doubtful, |